New Mars Forums

Chicken and egg Bill, chicken and egg...

No RLV, no city

Ah, but if you had inside information that the RLV was almost done, take the leap.

A true RLV will take many years to build

A Mars mission perminant enough to make a valid land grab will take years to prepare

So, there ain't gonna be a "surprise Mars colony mission" just in time to beat the RLVs

Sounds about right Rob, but I think that growing plants on Mars or in near-zero gravity will be so hard that Martians will be doing well just to feed themselves. The biggest problems are lack of nutrients and much, much less sunlight.

Anyway - - the nation-state is NOT well suited to accomplish space settlement. The first thing any self respecting space colony will do is revolt.

Unless given sufficient slack on the leash. If handled right, a nationally sponsored but nominally independent colony could bring great benefits. Essentially treat them as independent and trade with them for goods and services, work out arrangements. No need to be too overt about matters of who is really in charge. The wiggle-room it allows for with regards to treaties could be quite valuable on its own.

Bill has some interesting ideas on the financing aspect, worthy of further examination if a totally privatized mission is the objective. My own take would require a government with greater vision and a penchant for nefarious scheming at the expense of other interests. Most likely a bit of both will be needed.

But it would sure be something to be standing on Mars when that first big-budget colony ship arrives, waving smugly. 

You don't need a PhD in nuclear engineering to operate a reactor.

First, McCullough explained, is that advanced lunar infrastructure will provide semi-finished modules and other lunar materials for integrating and expanding space systems. Secondly, large vehicles can be fabricated in space using mostly automated methods. These great vessels could shuttle between planetary LaGrange points far from Earth. Lastly, large passenger-carrying vehicles will need to haul a massive "water radiation shelter" to protect occupants on outward bound flights.

In June, the Government Accountability Office advised NASA the protest [Musk vs Kistler] was valid, so the agency rescinded its deal with Kistler -- the matter closed, but hardly forgotten.

The opening bell for Round 2 sounded this month with the release of NASA's proposed spending plan for fiscal year 2006, which begins Oct. 1, and the clock ticking down toward the space shuttle's retirement.

NASA now is far more than interested in alternative transportation services to the space station. With Russia on schedule to complete its contractual requirements for rides to the station on Soyuz spacecraft next year, NASA must secure other transportation to the station.

In addition, though the space shuttle's anticipated return to flight this year -- currently scheduled for May 15 -- should buy NASA some time, there will be at least a four-year gap between the shuttle fleet's retirement in 2010 and the start of crew transports aboard NASA's proposed follow-on spacecraft, the Crew Exploration Vehicle.

Thus, in reviving its call for "alternative access to the space station" and budgeting $160 million for such services in 2006 -- and a total of $1.7 billion over the next five years -- NASA now is adding an option for commercial companies to ferry not just cargo, but also crewmembers to space. If it comes to fruition, NASA itself will provide a huge incentive for the nascent sub-orbital commercial spaceflight industry to aim for higher ground.

Kistler, for one, is keenly interested in transporting goods and eventually people into orbit for NASA.

With the K-1 vehicle 75 percent completed and financing lined up to emerge from bankruptcy within a month or two, Kistler has a new business plan, which while not dependent on NASA, is positioning the firm to ride the waves of change that have been pummeling the space agency since the 2003 shuttle Columbia accident and President George W. Bush's redirection of the agency's priorities from the shuttle fleet and the space station to human exploration of the moon, Mars and beyond.

* * *

Still, when NASA puts out the call for commercial space transport service proposals later this year, Brinkley said the K-1 will stand on its own.

"I think we have an inherent capability," he said.

K-1's debut flight is expected in early 2007, Brinkley said, adding that the company is looking at alternative U.S. launch sites, particularly at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, to serve NASA and a variety of commercial customers.

Water was common across a vast region of ancient Mars, creating habitable conditions for long stretches of time billions of years ago, scientists said Thursday.

New data reveal water in the Meridiani Planum region of Mars extended across hundreds of thousands of square miles, at least as groundwater and possibly as shallow lakes or seas.

The work significantly expands the amount of surface area on Mars known to have once been water-laden, and it extends the period of time that the water was present.

Just might be easier than we thought. ???
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7039] 'Pack ice' suggests frozen sea on Mars

A frozen sea, surviving as blocks of pack ice, may lie just beneath the surface of Mars, suggest observations from Europe's Mars Express spacecraft. The sea is just 5° north of the Martian equator and would be the first discovery of a large body of water beyond the planet's polar ice caps.

Images from the High Resolution Stereo Camera on Mars Express show raft-like ground structures - dubbed "plates" - that look similar to ice formations near Earth's poles, according to an international team of scientists.

No signifigant funding? I was under the impression that Prometheus was getting at least a large portion of what was requested.

I feel a "NASA = Stupid" moment coming on...

Just who exactly IS qualified to develop portable, reliable nuclear reactors in the high-kw/low-mw range Bill? The folks way back when in the SNAP-10/SP-100n and NERVA are long gone.

With no example reactor of the scale needed to copy from like NERVA, we aren't left with much to start on. At least the folks at DOE know how to build reactors at all, which is a leg up on most design bearaus.